File photo / Associated PressState Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill speaks during a news conference in front of the Statehouse in Boston in August.

HOLYOKE - State Treasurer and independent candidate for governor Timothy P. Cahill promised Wednesday morning to apply reforms from the Massachusetts School Building Authority to transportation projects.

“It was an oversight and we’ve corrected it,” Cahill said. “I’m embarrassed by it to be perfectly honest with you.”

Cahill spoke to more than 200 members of the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield during the chamber’s September breakfast at The Log Cabin in Holyoke.

The chamber hosted Gov. Deval L. Patrick, a Democrat running for re-election , at its February Outlook 2010 luncheon and Republican candidate Charles D. Baker spoke to a chamber luncheon during its Business Market Show in May.

Green-Rainbow candidate Jill E. Stein has not contacted the chamber, said Chamber President Russell F. Denver.

As treasurer, Cahill is in charge of the Massachusetts School Building Authority, an entity he said took over $11 billion in debt from a previous program back in 2004, of which $7 billion has been paid off. He said the authority has been able to reign in the cost of school construction projects by using standard designs over and over again, such as at the new $82 million Minnechaug Regional High School in Wilbraham where ground will be broken Friday.

“You don’t need to build every school from scratch,” he said.

The authority also helps communities find out exactly what is needed.

“We’ve been working with communities to separate wants from needs and we need to do that with transportation,” he said. “In traveling around the state, I’ve seen countless construction sites that are idle.”

He said he’d only approve transportation projects once the money is in place. He said stimulus spending on transportation hasn’t worked to create jobs and noted that the authority’s school projects have created 6,000 construction jobs this year.

“Just throwing money at a problem isn’t the solution,” Cahill said. “Anytime you try and do anything that is complex in a short amount of time, it just leads to waste and abuse.”